[This post was saved as a draft a few months ago. I did not publish it, so I will now; there have been some updates I will post in near future]

It has been a mind-numbing journey. Over the last four years I have crawled back from the very expensive “chase after nothing” that began in 2006. After I was evicted, having thrown away tens of thousands of dollars in assets and credit, I have lived in a halfway house, a sober living house, two different rooms in other people’s homes, and nine months in my car.

As I have gotten through straightening out the issues with California institutions regarding my driver’s license and car title, I’ve told people about how it is like crawling out of a hole I got pushed into. I’ve talked about getting to the stage of being able to peer over the edge, and even to finally getting high enough to finally get my rear end up over the edge. I feel I have finally gotten to the verge of crawling out. The stage I refer to as “square one.”

There were several debts that needed to be paid, and as I paid them off, I’ve discovered more. Recently, I ran a credit report and realized I still had five delinquencies to deal with. In the past few months, I paid off the two smallest ones. Then something happened that I did not expect. A company that has last-in-line claim to debts sent me two letters offering to settle at a deep discount. Even though these debts are not subject to judgment, and therefore attachment, I will probably settle with them in the interest of improving my credit rating to the best I can get it to in the short-term.

When that gets done I will still have one significant debt to deal with. However, I will be in a better position to get my own place, get a loan, or even secure full-time employment that I have been unable to procure because of my distressed position. It feels really good to say that.

I’m not sure what or where that will entail but I believe the next major step will be my own place again; the first one in the six years since I was evicted from Marina Harbor. I had an appointment the other day with the local housing authority about federally assisted housing and it seemed just beyond what I could afford. Disappointing, but I realized I am definitely much more risk averse than I was years ago and this was just another step along the way.